Short Stories

by Theodore Dreiser

Five powerful and original stories: "Free," "The Second Choice," "Married," "Nigger Jeff," and "The Lost Phoebe."

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Literature, American

173 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1918

About the author

Naturalistic novels of American writer and editor Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser portray life as a struggle against ungovernable forces. Value of his portrayed characters lies in their persistence against all obstacles, not their moral code, and literary situations more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency; this American novelist and journalist so pioneered the naturalist school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore...

Reviews

[Jeff Hobbs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read so far:

Free--2
Second Choice--3
Married--2
Nigger Jeff--3
The Lost Phoebe--3
***
The Hand--1
The Old Neighborhood--2
The Prince Who Was a Thief--3
Reina--2

[Naira · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He was very fond of Nature in its manifold art forms- quite poetic, in fact."

"And yet being conventional in mood and training and utterly domesticated by time and conditions over which he seemed not to have much control..."

"...sweetly spectral."

"...great art is based on great emotion."

"People had condition fixed for them in this world by their own ability. "

[Bill Glose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dreiser conveys interesting concepts with his stories, but they grow tiring in his long-winded tales composed of interior monologues that scroll through endless repetition of the same thoughts. The book is mercifully short, but the paragraphs are thick and dense.

[Julie Mercer · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED IT!

[Timothy McNeil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am of the belief that I want to like Dreiser much more than I do as an author. Maybe I should get around to reading his noted novels instead of muddling in the short fiction.

This may have been the sixth time I've read "The Lost Phoebe". I imagine that it is (especially now) the most anthologized of Dreiser's works. At the same time, I've never found it either fulfilling or purposeful. Dreiser wrote like a man who was being paid by the word, and not in the pulp magazine sense.

Of the other stories presented, "Nigger Jeff" and "The Second Choice" are the ones that come off as (mostly) mature pieces written by an accomplished author. Sure, "Nigger Jeff" is cowardly in its condemnation of lynching (so much so that Jeff is guilty of the crime of which he is accused, not just an accused negro...or an accused negro who the reader has no means of knowing whether or not he is guilty), but it owns up to that cowardice with a weak narrator who becomes a victim of the events in his own way. "The Second Choice" is a painfully evocative telling of the soul-ache (more so than heartache) of settling for a romantic match when one has realized that better and more enriching options have been glimpsed and tasted.

"Free" and "Married" serve as nice bookends to each other, but both are a bore to read (in my estimation). Seriously, "Free" could have been whittled down to two and half pages and all of the points would have been made. They just wouldn't have been made fifteen times a piece.

[Matthew Vacca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodore Dreiser was a name I was never familiar with, however I began to see it more and more as I researched classic books to read while teaching English in South Korea. Using many "Top 100 Books" lists to compile a wish list of authors and titles to find, Dreiser became a name I saw on most lists, along with author, Sherwood Anderson. I recently read and loved Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. When I came across this collection of 5 short stories in Seoul for 2,400 Won, around $2, with an introduction by Anderson himself, I knew the time had come to experience Dreiser. With a style similar to Sherwood Anderson, I thoroughly enjoyed the collection, particularly 2 stories, "Ni**er Jeff" and "The Lost Phoebe". I highly recommend them to anyone who likes simple short stories about ordinary people. His style is effortless and compelling without ever being flashy. I hope to find more of his titles the next time I am at What The Book, in Itaewon.

[Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The central topic in these short stories is how we relate to eachother in life, death, grief, and love. Mostly, these are stories of people who, for whatever reason, have wound up tied together, and who ask themselves, "what if..." and "why" a believably human number of times.

[Munkhtuya Mishig · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked "lost Pheabe" the most. nice but unexpectable stories..

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thin book, but some heavy writing. There's some rough psychological stuff here. I recommend it for fans of earlier American fiction.